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Concluding their journey with two gigs at Komedia and the release of their belated debut album, Brighton’s The Hat were never going to go through the motions and get it over with. What we got were two inspired and emotive shows that had the audience fully engaged – they knew they were witnessing the final moments of one of the best bands in recent years, and they weren’t going to miss a thing. Four equally talented singers, musicians and songwriters, who really came together for the more intimate parts of the show, featuring a number of songs so hushed and fragile you could hear a pin drop. The final song, the beautiful ‘Falling’ had many of the audience in tears.
Komedia, 14 & 15 August
5/5
Jeff Hemmings

Inspector Sands theatre group have a gift for making playfully experimental theatre out of populist scenarios. The multi-award winning ‘Hysteria’ followed the progress of a disastrous dinner date. Their latest, which previewed in Brighton before premiering at Edinburgh’s Traverse, concerns a couple of office workers nervously preparing for their wedding. Taking loose inspiration from the Peggy Lee song and littering the stage with popcorn, red wine and the contents of a paper shredder, it’s currently a wildly imaginative brainstorm of a show lacking the company’s usual physical acuteness. But as the bride attempts to photocopy her tears and the groom takes to plotting her behaviour via Powerpoint, they once again nail the neuroticism of normal life.
Nightingale Theatre, 15 August
3/5
Bella Todd

Not so much opera as drama with songs this production had us all roaring with laughter. The play was simply well played, the songs beautifully sung and the orchestra on strident form. However, the form of this work by Purcell is oddly uncomfortable by modern tastes and were it not for the brilliantly witty staging and direction it might have seemed long and un-cohesive. It was not, the drama raced along, the music was delightful and the set and costumes worked their magic. At the end of the first half the stage filled with the chorus dressed as toy bunnies who, to Purcells sawing theme, did what bunnies allegedly do.
Glyndebourne, 8 August
5/5
Andrew Kay

Comic poet Tim Key is a great deliverer. His surreal and, in many cases, sinister verses are amusing, but, his comic timing, explanations and justifications of the minutiae of his poems give them a uniquely humorous, improvised feel.
The eccentric highlights of this Edinburgh warm-up show included a poem about the culinary uses of dew, a film of office workers cutting up an eel and lists of animals that Key could fit inside, or not fit inside, with some assistance and equipment.
After recent appearances on Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe and a series of Radio 4 sketch shows, the two-times Perrier Award Winner is beginning to get some of the prominence his bizarre musings and quick wit deserve.
Upstairs At Three and Ten, 17 July
5/5
Ralph Miller